If you didn’t know by now, I’ll let you in on a (not-so-)little secret: I’m a bit obsessed with photography. I experience much of my life through the lens, and I remember through pictures.

It’s difficult for me to separate photographs of good technical quality with those that have a strong sentimental tie, because I have similar reactions to both. The former are like the good child – always doing well in school, someone who brings great pride. The latter are also like children (they’re a piece of you), and while they may not perform as admirably, the mother loves them for all of the happy moments and experiences.

This is probably why I can never throw any of my thousands of pictures away, so I have been working to take better photos from the start.

But when a happy memory happens to coincide with a technically pleasing photograph, it brings me great satisfaction.

I love going to the beach – it’s a way to relax and detach from crazy life for a little while. And you can be sure I’ll always have a camera in-hand. While I love watching the storms roll in in the winter, these cold, blustery, wet days aren’t always very conducive to photography. Summertime doesn’t always offer much better, as the sun is bright, and the sky is boringly plain.

However, if one is there near sunset, magic occasionally visits.

We planned to join a group of our photographer friends for an evening shoot on the beach, but we didn’t want to drive the distance just for an evening, so we left home early and spent the day there. We got in a long hike and some wonderful exploring long before the event even started. We even discovered an amazing viewpoint few ever visit (I’ll post about that story soon), so we were having a great day already.

We miscalculated the tides a bit, so the evening shoot was cut short, but the sunset was simply beautiful, if not from the location we had intended. The clouds were wonderful, and we even had some low misty fog obscuring the distant hillside.

Now, I look back on that day happily, and I even managed to secure some aesthetic images to go with the beautiful memories. I am quite content.

I’m curious to know why the two must be separated. Like cooking, photos are better when infused with love, right? You can often tell when a photographer is too detached from his images 🙂 Like all things, it’s probably best in the middle.